“We need to participate for the common good. Sometimes we hear: a good Catholic is not interested in politics. This is not true: goodCatholics immerse themselves in politics by offering the best of themselves so that the leader can govern.” -Pope Francis, 9/16/2013

"This now overturned legislation reflects an ominous trend in our society. Abortion supporters, having long denied that unborn children have a right to life, would deny that their fellow Americans who seek to protect the unborn have the same rights as other Americans – the right to freedom of speech and freedom of association; the right to participate in the public square and serve the vulnerable in accord with our moral convictions. Increasingly we see this trend evidenced at various levels of government. We are encouraged and pleased to know that with regard to this particular issue, our highest court has affirmed the American tradition of basic constitutional rights for all.” --Cardinal O’Malley statement from June 2014 on Buffer Zones

During the last day of the Dec. 9-12 “Ecclesia in America” congress at the Vatican, Cardinal O’Malley said he believes things are “only going to get worse because Catholics themselves don’t worry about defending the unborn or teaching the true meaning of life.” “We need to be much more proactive to prepare our laity and help them understand what a crucial role they have in public life and in the media where they’re forming public opinion and educating people through different means that have a great impact in society.” He added, “if we’re going to evangelize the culture, we need to have evangelizers in those areas.” “There are just not enough legislators who favor life,” he said…--Cardinal O’Malley told CNA on Dec. 13, 2012

Because the common good is at stake, it is imperative that we exercise our right and duty to vote. As recognized by Pope Benedict XVI, the laity should “participate in political life, in a manner consistently in accordance with the Church’s teaching, bringing their well-founded reasons and high ideals into the democratic debate[.]” -- Papal Address to the Pontifical Council for the Laity (May 21, 2010).

Particularly for us as Catholics, voting is an exercise of reason inspired by faith. The Holy Father has thus observed: “Just as every economic decision has a moral consequence, so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore[.]” “This is why,” he continued, “the world of reason and the world of faith—the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief—need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.” -- Papal Address at Westminster Hall, England, Sept. 17, 2010.

Our participation as citizens in the electoral process allows us to propose our vision for this country and about our future as a democracy. Thus voting is above all an opportunity—an occasion for contributing our insights as Catholics to the civic discussion nationally and locally, thereby inspiring social change consistent with our country’s foundational values. -Selected Paragraphs from the MCC 2010 “Hope for a Better Tomorrow.”

The question for those elected officials who opposed allowing the marriage amendment to be voted on by the people is: do we live in a country where people are free to vote their conscience or are we controlled by what is viewed as politically correct and by powerful special interest groups? -Statement from the MCC, June 14, 2007

Society has a moral responsibility for the good of future generations to commit strongly to the institution of marriage as it has been recognized from time immemorial. Each of us must exercise our rights as citizens, and urge our legislators to vote to move the Marriage Amendment to the 2008 ballot and allow every citizens voice to be heard. -From Cardinal Sean’s Blog, May, 2007

"The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation." - Pope Benedict - Address to US Bishops on their AD LIMINA visit - January 19, 2012

"It is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion." - Pope Benedict - Address to US Bishops on their AD LIMINA visit - January 19, 2012

"None of us can say, 'I have nothing to do with this, they govern. No, no, I am responsible for their governance, and I have to do the best so that they govern well, and I have to do my best by participating in politics according to my ability. Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!" - Pope Francis - Daily Homily - September 16, 2013

"Catholics must get involved in politics even if it may be dirty, frustrating and fraught with failure. Given today's throwaway culture and so many problems unfolding in the world, Do I as a Catholic watch from my balcony? No, you can't watch from the balcony. Get right in there!" - Pope Francis - May 1, 2015

Here are some of Pope Francis' quotes specifically from the article in the Pilot:

"Like a soccer match, life only takes players on the first string and has no room for bench warmers."

"Today's world demands that you be a protagonist of history, because life is always beautiful when we choose to live it fully, when we choose to leave a mark."

"He(God) wants to make you see that, with you, the world can be different. For the fact is, unless you offer the best of yourselves, the world will never be different."

Appendix

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops provides a wealth of information in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. Every four years, during the Presidential election, the Catholic Bishops meet and approve this document which serves as a guide for all Catholics. The document applies to all priests, deacons, religious and laity. The following Pastoral Plan is from the USCCB’s office of Pro-Life Activities.

Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities: A Campaign in Support of Life

In our present social context, marked by a dramatic struggle between the "culture of life" and the "culture of death", there is need to develop a deep critical sense, capable of discerning true values and authentic needs. What is urgently called for is a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life. All together, we must build a new culture of life.- Blessed John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, no. 95 (emphasis added) ‘

lay persons and volunteers, who through their charisms and unique responsibilities impact individuals and the broader community in a profound way when they assume roles of leadership in their parishes and in society

We are reminded that "the Church must be committed to the task of educating and supporting lay people involved in law-making, government and the administration of justice, so that legislation will always reflect those principles and moral values which are in conformity with a sound anthropology and advance the common good" (The Church in America, no. 19, quoting Synod for America, proposition 72).

The Declaration of Independence, written more than two hundred years ago, speaks of the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" before making this historic assertion: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Today we see the tensions increasing between these founding principles and political reality. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the continuing effort to ignore the right to life of unborn children, as well as in efforts to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a "Gospel of life." It invites all persons to a new life lived abundantly in respect for human dignity. We believe that this Gospel is not only a complement to American . . . principles, but also the cure for the spiritual sickness now infecting our society. . . . We cannot simultaneously commit ourselves to human rights and progress while eliminating or marginalizing the weakest among us. Nor can we practice the Gospel of life only as a private piety. American Catholics must live it vigorously and publicly, as a matter of national leadership and witness, or we will not live it at all. (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 20)

The law is not the only means of protecting life, but it plays a key and often decisive role in affecting both human behavior and thinking. Those called to civil leadership, as Pope John Paul II reminds us, "have a duty to make courageous choices in support of life, especially throughlegislative measures." This is a responsibility that cannot be put aside, "especially when he or she has a legislative or decision-making mandate, which calls that person to answer to God, to his or her own conscience and to the whole of society for choices which may be contrary to the common good" (The Gospel of Life, no. 90).

Public officials are privileged in a special way to apply their moral convictions to the policy arena. We hold in high esteem those who, through such positions and authority, promote respect for all human life. Catholic civil leaders who reject or ignore the Church's teaching on the sanctity of human life do so at risk to their own spiritual well-being. "No public official, especially one claiming to be a faithful and serious Catholic, can responsibly advocate for or actively support direct attacks on innocent human life" (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 32).

§passage of a constitutional amendment that will protect unborn children's right to life to the maximum degree possible, and pursuit of appropriate strategies to attain this goal

§federal and state laws and administrative policies that restrict the practice of abortion as much as possible and that prohibit government support of abortion, human cloning, and research that destroys human embryos

§continual challenging of the scope of and ultimate reversing of the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts denying the right to life

§support for legislation that provides morally acceptable alternatives to abortion, including funding to expand education, health, nutrition, and other services for disadvantaged parents and their children

§support for federal and state legislation that promotes effective palliative care for those who are chronically ill or dying

§support for efforts to prevent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide by legislation or referendum

§support for efforts to end the death penalty

A public policy program requires well-planned and coordinated advocacy by citizens at the national, state, and local levels. Such activity is not solely the responsibility of Catholics but instead requires widespread cooperation and collaboration on the part of groups large and small, religious and secular. As U.S. citizens and religious leaders, we see a critical moral imperative for public policy efforts to ensure the protection of human life. We urge our fellow citizens to see the justice of this cause and to work with us to achieve these objectives.

Laws Less Than Perfect While at times human law may not fully articulate the moral imperative—full protection for the right to life—our legal system can and must be continually reformed so that it will increasingly fulfill its proper task of protecting the weak and preserving the right to life of every human being, born and unborn. In The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II explains that one may support "imperfect" legislation—legislation that, for example, does not ban all abortions but puts some control on a current more permissive law by aiming to limit the number of abortions—if that is the best that can be achieved at a particular time. In doing so one seeks to limit the harm done by the present law: "This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects" (no. 73).

Catholic Citizenship informs clergy, religious and laity about public policy issues and their affect on our society's commongood. Our mission is to promote authentic Catholic Social Teaching in the public square, as promulgated by the Magisterium. Our Bishops remind us that "responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation."

Candidate Position Papers highlight where candidates stand on Marriage, the Right to Life, Taxes, and Parental Rights. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Massachusetts have spoken out on most of the issues presented in the papers. State Senate Races

In this book, Sears and Osten set out to highlight how the ACLU has been undermining Judeo-Christian values in the United States since its founding in 1920. The work of the ACLU has impacted the freedoms of millions of Americans: the church has been progressively silenced, parental authority has been undermined, children are less safe, and human life continues to be cheapened-both at birth and death.

The ACLU vs. America is an upfront wake-up call to these subversive attacks that every true freedom-loving individual and family must heed.

The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America and Politics without God by George Weigel

If you want to get a glimpse of American society without God, observe what is happening in Europe. Although our nation continues to slide into secularism, it has not completely abandoned God in the public square. While many European political leaders insist that only a public square shorn of religiously informed moral argument is safe for human rights and democracy, Weigel contends that the opposite is true. In this work, Weigel makes the case that in the final analysis, societies and cultures are only as great as their spiritual aspirations.

RENDER UNTO CAESAR: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Lifeby Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver

Recognized as a national figure in religious and political circles, Archbishop Chaput has written and presented on the topic of religion and public policy. In this work, Chaput points out that in order to have a healthy democracy, citizens must not set aside their moral convictions. To survive, American democracy depends upon people of character, fighting for their beliefs in the public square, respectfully, but vigorously and without apology. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the nation's health. Or as Chaput suggests: Good manners are not an excuse for political cowardice.]]>robertaufiero@gmail.com (Administrator)Faithful CitizenshipTue, 20 Apr 2010 18:34:42 +0000Research on Population Growthhttp://catholic-citizenship.org/index.php/resources/26-research-on-pop-growth/42-researchpopgrowth
http://catholic-citizenship.org/index.php/resources/26-research-on-pop-growth/42-researchpopgrowth

What Planned Parenthood doesn't want you to read...

Population Research Institute is a pro-life educational organization dedicated to protecting and defending human life, ending human rights abuses committed in the name of family planning, and dispelling the myth of overpopulation. Visit them on-line at http://www.pop.org

The Demographic Winter and the Barren LeftBy Steven W. Mosher

Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 6:07 AM

The Nation, a hard left publication of secular bent, is no friend of faith, life, or family. Still, I was expecting to be more amused than outraged by the lead article in the March issue, profiling the work of the Population Research Institute (PRI) and several other groups collectively concerned about falling fertility rates worldwide. The piece opens with the eye-catching line: “Steve Mosher is telling me about wolves returning to the streets of European towns . . . [during] the Black Death.”

Nothing calumnious here. I did, over a lengthy lunch at a sunny Main Street café in Front Royal, Virginia, say this very thing—and much more—to the author, radical feminist Kathryn Joyce. In the context of falling birth rates in Europe, I told her a cautionary tale about Europe’s earlier demographic collapse—the one that was caused by the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages—that left the continent in a century-long depression. If the demographic winter that now holds Europe in its grip continues, I concluded, then not only its people but also its economies may be expected to wither and die as they did centuries earlier. Much of the rest of the world seems set to follow, I told her. I have been a demographic bore for some time now, and the conversation was chockablock with numbers, statistics, and fertility rates.

Ms. Joyce did a good impersonation of listening, but her article is almost devoid of demographics. Indeed, this lacuna is essential to her argument, which is that the “demographic winter” is a creation of a conspiracy of conservative pro-natalist Christian groups. Or, in her words, the “baby-bust,” “the birth dearth,” and “the graying of the continent” are nothing more than “modern euphemisms for old-fashioned race panic as low fertility rates among white ‘Western’ couples coincides with an increasingly visible immigrant population across Europe.”

Why would Christian conservatives in the United States promote such ideas? Because we are, she breathlessly tells her readers, “in a panic for more white babies.” Our goal, according to this handmaid’s tale, is to turn white “women’s bodies” into breeding machines and maternity wards into “battlegrounds.” To make sure we get it, she entitles her piece “Missing: The ‘Right’ Babies.”

I will examine this feminist fantasy, and the deeply held leftist prejudices that animate it, later on. But first let’s take a look at the numbers that Ms. Joyce found so inconvenient to her thesis. For the numbers tell a stark tale of mankind’s decline, not just in Europe, but in much of the rest of the world as well. However insouciant the left is about reproduction (as opposed to its intense interest in copulation), demography is still destiny—for them as well as everyone else.

Demographic Winter Strikes Europe

Discussions of the demographic winter start with Europe not because of race (is it really necessary to say?) but because the barren world of tomorrow is already evident in the Europe of today. As nearly everyone knows by now, all of Europe, from Ireland in the West to Russia in the East, is aging and dying.

Unlike the Black Death of the Middle Ages, which filled up the graveyards of the continent, the new epidemic of voluntary infertility empties out the maternity wards. And it is not the result of bacteria that infect our bodies but rather anti-natal thoughts that invade our minds. These are reinforced by an economic system that puts a premium on expanding the workforce at the expense of maternity, as well as a political system that weakens families, putting those with children at a financial disadvantage that is both unjust and shortsighted. The peoples of Europe, along with those of every other developed nation and many as yet underdeveloped, for some time now have been refusing to provide for the future in the most fundamental way—by providing the next generation. Following in the footsteps of the Europeans, many other peoples around the world seem to be committing a slow form of collective suicide.

Obscured by debates over epiphenomena like exploding immigration and bankrupt pension funds is the brute fact that Europe is already suffering from a devastating, crippling shortage of people. The populations of no fewer than thirteen European countries, including Russia, Poland, and Hungary, have already begun to crash. The total fertility rate for Europe, including the former Soviet republics, currently averages an anemic 1.4 children per woman, and no increase is in sight. As a result, the current population of 728 million will plunge to only 557 million by the year 2050, a drop similar in magnitude to that occurring during the Black Death. At that point, Europe will be losing three to four million people a year. Three out of four Europeans will have disappeared by the end of the twenty-first century, when the population will number only 207 million. By then the population decline will be irreversible, with the surviving Europeans averaging more than sixty years of age.

The plunge has already begun in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Russia’s population is already decreasing by three-quarters of a million people each year; Ukraine’s, by a quarter million. Russia’s population is slated to decrease from 143 million in 2005 to 112 million in 2050.

Birthrates are higher—although still running below replacement levels—in Western Europe. France’s estimated Total Fertility Rate, for instance, is running at 1.86 children per woman. While this is high by European standards, much of this fertility is attributable to immigrants, who are, as it happens, Muslims. Subtracting out the three or four children of the average immigrant leaves the native population averaging only 1.3 children or so, about the European average. Demographers now estimate that France, for example, will be as much as 40 percent Muslim by 2050.

“In demographic terms, Europe is vanishing,” remarked then Premier Jacques Chirac back in 1984. “[Soon] our countries will be empty.” Empty of Gauls, Teutons, Britons, and Slavs perhaps. But other tribes, more fruitful than the modern-day European ones, will certainly come to occupy the pleasant lands north of the Mediterranean. And the surviving Europeans will retreat to their retirement homes, as the Neanderthals once retreated across the same terrain before the advance of Cro-Magnon Man. In France, as in most of Western Europe, the successor population is already in place.

What did Ms. Joyce, who sat picking through her salad as I rehearsed these grim statistics and scenarios, make of all this? The notion of a “demographic winter,” she writes, is being “fervently hawked among a group of Christian-right ‘pro-family’ activists” to stir up xenophobia against Muslim immigrants and to frighten white Europeans into out-breeding them.

The key members of this conspiracy to foment a kind of race war are, of course, Catholics. (Anti-Catholic bigotry is always respectable—some would say virtually required—in leftist circles.) I am described as “the president of the Catholic anti-contraception lobbyist group, Population Research Institute.” Another grand conspirator, Christine de Vollmer of the Latin American Alliance for the Family, is referred to as “Catholic activist de Vollmer.” Austin Ruse is identified as the “head of the ultraconservative Catholic UN lobbyist group C-FAM” [italics added]. And behind us—how did you guess?—looms the shadowy power of the papacy. “The last two popes have involved themselves in the debate, with John Paul II pronouncing a ‘crisis in births’ in 2002 in an anomalous papal address to Italy’s Parliament and Benedict XVI remarking on the ‘tragedy’ of childless European couples.”

However sinister she tries to make it sound, my comments on the falling fertility of modern-day Europeans were not intended to foment “race panic,” nor does it betray neo-Nazi inclinations. I was simply reporting on today’s demographic realities.

Certainly, on the Muslim side, with the exception of some extremists, this is not a competition of the cradle. Vast numbers of Muslim couples are falling prey to the same modernist, anti-natal impulses that are driving Europe’s birthrate down, while others are victims of population-control programs imposed by their own governments.

Islam Contracepted

The millions of Muslims migrating to Europe are not being driven out of their homelands by population pressure so much as they are being drawn into a demographic vacuum as Europe empties itself of offspring. There are still pockets of high fertility in the Islamic world—impoverished Afghanistan has one of the highest birthrates in the world—but the trend is towards three- and even two-child families.

In recent years, a number of Muslim countries have seen fertility declines that are among the largest ever recorded. Kuwait, Algeria, Iran, and Tunisia all saw their fertility rate drop by two-thirds during the past three decades of the twentieth century. All were at or below replacement by 2000.

In Iran, for example, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 ushered in a government of ayatollahs committed to the Qur’anic injunction that children are blessings and opposed to all forms of birth control. Yet, by the early nineties, the depression induced by the flight of Western investors, along with the unrelenting efforts of Western population controllers, induced the Iranian government to change its policy. Departing from the traditional Islamic understanding of children as a blessing, the government began a foreign-inspired campaign against the large family. Many a village mullah began devoting part of his Friday sermon to encouraging his followers to visit the local birth-control center, where the government offered free contraception and sterilization. The brief flourishing of births that followed the Islamic Revolution quickly subsided. By 2006, family size stood at 1.79 children and falling.

Birthrates are also plummeting in relatively prosperous, Westernized Turkey, despite the exhortations of government leaders to have more children. As the fertility rate fell past 2.5 children per women in 2002, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, soon to become Turkey’s prime minister, attacked contraception as “straight out treason to the state.” “Have babies,” he ordered Turks. “Allah wants it.” Appeals to patriotism and faith apparently fell on deaf ears, as Turkey’s fertility rate skidded past replacement in 2007 and is still falling.

The most geopolitically charged exception to the small family norm is found among the Palestinians. The late Yassir Arafat once bragged that “the womb of the Arab woman is my best weapon.” Those wombs, it turns out, are still churning out nearly five children each, almost twice as many as the average Jewish woman. Moreover, immigration to Israel has slowed to a trickle.

One consequence of losing the contest of the cradle is that by 2005 Jews had become a minority in Greater Israel. It is perhaps no coincidence that Israel pulled out of Gaza that same year. Uprooting a few thousand Israeli settlers may have seemed a small price to pay for ridding itself of 1.3 million unassimilated Palestinians. Both sides understand that it is not just modern weapons systems that will determine the ultimate fate of Israel, but differential birth rates as well.

Ms. Joyce, however, stubbornly refuses to concede this obvious point. Instead, she contrives to shoot the messenger—that is to say, me. In a classic twist and sneer, she claims that I “revealed the limits of my professed concern for women’s rights when [I told her] that Israel relinquished Gaza because, as Yassir Arafat said, the best weapon of the Palestinians is ‘the womb of the Arab woman.’” Come again, Kathryn? I was merely reporting on Arafat’s instrumental view of Arab women, not endorsing it.

It Isn’t Just Europe, Ms. Joyce

The unprecedented fall in fertility rates that began in postwar Europe has, in the decades since, spread to every corner of the globe.

Take Latin America, for example. The image of the loving Mexican mamacita surrounded by a passel of barefoot children remains scratched on the minds of Americans, even when it has largely vanished in the dusty pueblos of Mexico itself. Government-enforced sterilization campaigns, along with simple modernity, have dramatically shrunk family size south of the border in recent years. When I speak to American audiences, they are invariably surprised to learn that the average young Mexican family now numbers no more children than its American counterpart.

But Central and South American countries, too, are seeing their birthrates fall. Most Latin American countries are now rapidly approaching replacement rate fertility, if they are not already there, according to the United Nations Population Division (UNPD). Women in Brazil, the largest South American country, currently average only 2.3 children. The inhabitants of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are even less fertile.

Across the Pacific, China has become a byword for forced-pace population control. Since the early eighties, Chinese women have been allowed an average of only 1.7 children, a birthrate so low that by 2020 China’s median age will be older than that of the United States.

India’s de facto two-child policy is neither as well known nor as brutal as China’s. But this policy, in conjunction with simple modernity, has effectively brought the fertility rate down to about 2.8 or so. India is projected to reach replacement rate fertility in a decade or so.

The voluntary childlessness of the Japanese exceeds even the forced-pace population reduction of China’s one-child policy. With a total fertility rate of only 1.25, Japan is on the brink of a major demographic meltdown. Its population of 127 million has stopped growing and—if the birthrate continues at this low level—will soon begin to shrink at an alarming pace. A population bust, like an explosion, proceeds in geometric progression.

The old-age tsunami that is about to hit Japan will not spare other Asian countries. The Four Tigers—Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore—are already getting long in the tooth.

Wherever we turn in the world, we see the same general picture. The only seeming exception is Sub-Saharan Africa, where birthrates are still fairly robust. But Africa has another problem: It languishes in the grip of an HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is sending some nations, such as South Africa, into absolute population decline.

The latest forecasts by the UNPD show the number of people in the world shrinking by mid-century, that is, before today’s young adults reach retirement age. I am speaking here of the UNDP’s “low variant” projections—historically the most accurate—which show that the population of the world will continue to creep up until about the year 2040, peaking at around 7.6 billion people. This is only a fraction more—one-sixth or so–than the 6.5 billion that the planet supports at present. Then the global population implosion, slow at first, but accelerating over time, begins. We fall back to current levels by 2082 and then shrink to under five billion by the turn of the next century.

This population implosion, by reducing the amount of human capital available, will have a dramatic impact on every aspect of life. As Peter Drucker has noted, “The dominant factor for business in the next two decades—absent war, pestilence, or collision with a comet—is not going to be economics or technology. It will be demographics.”

I made it clear to Ms. Joyce that the demographic collapse that occurred “naturally” in the developed world has been in large part imposed by force on the less fortunate and less powerful peoples of the world. Hapless villagers worldwide have been subjected to clever marketing schemes, bait-and-switch health ploys, anti-family TV soap operas, and even blunt coercion in an effort to deprive them of the free exercise of their fertility.

Ms. Joyce did not appear to find any of this morally objectionable, nor did it appear in print. Perhaps this is because, like most feminists, she is deeply persuaded that women of color want nothing more than to wear the same IUDs, swallow the same birth-control pills, and undergo the same abortions that have set white feminists free of “patriarchal bondage.” Or perhaps it is because she, like the left in general, believes that the developing world really does have a population problem, the solution to which just might require heavy-handed measures.

What she does find objectionable is that I, during a recent speech in Poland, encouraged the Poles to be more open to life by saying, “I want to see more Poles!”

Now of course I would like to see more babies in dying Poland—the Poles are averaging only 1.23 children–or anywhere else for that matter. As Ms. Joyce well knows from our long conversation, I am partial to babies in general, regardless of how much or how little pigment they happen to have in their skin. Speaking recently to five thousand people in Manila, I declared, “I want to see more Filipinos.” And last year at a conference in Columbia, I called for more Columbians. Condemn me for being pro-people, if you will, but don’t condemn me for being racist.

And if race is to be the subject, then let me mention my own ancestry, which includes Native American blood, and that of my wife’s, who is Hispanic. My children range in appearance from little Geronimos to little Bridgets, if you must know. But apparently Ms. Joyce couldn’t see beyond the color of my blue eyes. Who’s the racist here?

It amazes me that groups like PRI and the Latin American Alliance for the Family, whose work has been largely focused on helping “women of color,” can be accused of only promoting white births. In China, we have documented the forced abortion of young Chinese women and thus helped to cut funding to the U.N. agency cheerleading that country’s program. In Peru, we were instrumental in halting then President Alberto Fujimori’s infamous sterilization campaign, which was primarily directed against the Quechua-speaking Indians of the High Andes. Perhaps Ms. Joyce thinks that China and the Andes are inhabited by Aryans.

But her most amazing misrepresentation concerns my call for pro-natal policies to help save social security and counter the coming demographic winter. Issuing from her pen, this somehow became a handmaid’s tale—a world in which women are reduced to the role of helpless breeders. And not just any women, mind you, but white women like her.

She actually goes so far as to suggest that I intend white Christians to out-reproduce Muslims (and perhaps everybody else, for that matter). As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, we at PRI are said to be engaged in “a new cold war, a ‘clash of civilizations’ to be fought through women’s bodies, with the maternity ward as a battleground.”

Ms. Joyce, herself a creature of the feminist narrative she has created, imagines that PRI and other pro-natal groups are conspiring to keep her and her sisters barefoot and pregnant. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am quite content to let the writers, readers, and editors of The Nation make their own fertility decisions. Having largely rejected marriage for cohabitation, conception for contraception, and childbearing for abortion, I doubt if they average one child per every pair of “significant others” (or whatever they’re calling their transient liaisons these days).

I would only ask that the left show the same regard for others, both in America and around the world. Surveys show that young American women, for example, express a preference for 2.5 children or so, significantly more than the two that they are likely to actually bear. PRI’s goal, through its educational and public policy initiatives, is to make it possible for women to achieve their desired number of children.

The left, however, seems determined to treat young women (and men) as wayward children to be propagandized, contracepted, sterilized, and aborted out of their inherently pro-natal convictions. Having adopted a de facto one-child policy themselves, they are hell-bent on imposing it on the rest of us. So they continue to propagate the myth of overpopulation, zealously support Planned Parenthood and other government-subsidized contraception and sterilization services, and bitterly oppose any restrictions on abortion.

There is a panic over births after all, it turns out. But it is not, as Ms. Joyce would have it, the Catholics, evangelicals, and Mormons of the pro-life, pro-family movement who are alarmed. These have bound themselves to their spouses in mutually fulfilling marriages and are happily procreating. As a result they are seeing their numbers and influence expand.

Not so the largely white and sterile readers of The Nation. Like the barren Ms. Joyce, unmarried and childless as she enters her thirties, they propagate aging and outmoded ideologies instead of making babies. Perhaps it is understandable that they are, well, panicking.

Steven W. Mosher is president of the Population Research Institute and the author of Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits (Transaction, 2008).